No words can say it

I am sitting next to you,
close enough to feel the years between us,
not as distance,
but as weight,
as warmth.

All the things we went through,
the good that carried us,
the bad that stayed longer than it should have.
How the hard moments learned our names
faster than the gentle ones.

I watch you.
I watch the woman who once was young and light,
who smiled and chose a life with me
without knowing all the storms
we would later call ours.

So many years side by side.
So many words spoken too quickly,
so many left unsaid.
Wounds made by carelessness,
by fear,
by being human and tired
and loving imperfectly.

There is so much I never knew how to hold in a sentence
the gratitude,
the regret,
the quiet admiration
for how you stayed,
how you endured,
how you became us.

All the heavy thoughts we buried
between ordinary days.
All the apologies folded into silence.
All the love that learned to breathe
even when it hurt.

You look at me.
And in that moment,
with everything behind us
and everything still unspoken,
there is only one truth
strong enough to carry it all:

I love you.